Viewpoint

Misleading claims that the West Coast Main Line will soon be full distract from more immediate problems with our rail network, says Michael May.

Why we don’t need HS2

17 September 2013

The government, HS2 Ltd and the rail industry continue to use smoke and mirrors when they say that the West Coast Main Line (WCML) will be full in the next 10 years and is near capacity now. When you look at the number of people that use the WCML Virgin services compared with the seats available, there is plenty of capacity.

There are two aspects to determining whether the WCML is full and whether it can accommodate future growth. First, one must consider current and future demand versus capacity and then, second, the potential future growth in the market.

Data from Network Rail’s London & South East Route Utilisation Strategy (July 2011) shows that the WCML into Euston is the least crowded of all lines into London with the exception of HS1. The truth is that other routes such as the main lines into Waterloo, Victoria and Liverpool Street and key commuter routes into cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds are full now — and in many cases the government has no long-term plans to provide extra capacity.

The government’s own figures released in the High Court in December 2012 showed that in the evening peak the Virgin WCML trains were on average only 52 per cent full. What this really means is that they have an average of 229 passengers on each train. The recently lengthened WCML Pendolino trains (to 11 cars) have a seating capacity of 589 seats per train and can easily be extended to 12 cars (except Liverpool) to have 693 seats per train, which is more than three times the number of passengers who use the Virgin WCML trains today. It is implausible that the WCML will run out of capacity in the foreseeable future and certainly not before all the other lines into London will have come to a grinding halt.

It is fair to say that you could not double the number of trains on the WCML but the number of trains you run is not the correct measure of route capacity: it is the number of seats that you provide. As an analogy, if an airline uses a 220-seat aircraft (say a Boeing 767) on a route from London to Boston and the flights become full, its first response is to change to a bigger aircraft (say a Boeing 777), not to put on a second flight.

The Department for Transport (DfT) forecasts that demand on the WCML will double by 2033 and supporters of HS2 point to the huge growth on the WCML over the last few years to justify this position, but again I must bring people down to Earth. Yes, there was 20 per cent growth in demand on the WCML in 2009–2010 and that was not surprising as there was a step change in the level of service following the upgrade. Taking London to Manchester as an example, for years there had been just one train an hour, taking two hours and 40 minutes, but there is now a train every 20 minutes, taking two hours and eight minutes. However, the most recent figures show that growth on the WCML has now tailed off sharply.

The same pattern occurred when the WCML was electrified in the 1960s: initial rapid growth, and then passenger numbers plateaued for many years.

As outlined previously, the WCML can cater for any foreseeable future increase in demand on inter-city services without the need for any upgrade of the line. However, there is a major overcrowding problem today on the fast commuter trains to Milton Keynes and Northampton: the DfT states that three of the 10 most overcrowded trains in the country last year were on this route. The fast commuter capacity on this route can be doubled by building a new flyover south of Milton Keynes and introducing faster rolling stock, and this could be done in five years, as identified in the alternative solution to HS2 proposed by local authority group 51m.

The work required to deliver the above extra commuter capacity would cause little disruption to the WCML. Construction of the flyover near Milton Keynes would be similar to the Hitchin flyover recently completed by Network Rail on the East Coast Main Line. Indeed, the disruption would be far less than that caused by HS2, which would reduce the number of platforms at Euston for many years during construction and require no less than five new grade-separated junctions connected to existing mainline. It is totally wrong to suggest that providing sufficient future capacity using the existing WCML requires a major upgrade and disruption similar to the WCML upgrade between 2004 and 2008.

Rather than spending £50bn on HS2, which is not needed, the government should focus its attention on solving the real problems by investing in infrastructure in the regions, bringing benefits to the many rather than the few.

Michael May is director of May Associates strategic transport consultancy.

Readers' comments
(19)

michael wand | 17 Sep 2013 12:28 pm

Very interesting figures. But, either way with WCML capacity, if HS2 is built London-first, it will give London a big new radial economic artery and increase the size of hinterland that super-size London can grow into and support. Ditto the tilt of the UK economy towards London.

A North-first start on HS2 or son-of-HS2 and construction in operable stages, to include a new fast-connector rail link between Manchester and Leeds, would give the North that big new economic artery first.

A couple of points to add to this:- the paucity of stations in Northamptonshire means a lot of people are forced to drive into Northampton or Milton Keynes to catch a train. A way of spreading the load would be to build a new station at Blisworth on the MK-Rugby direct line, with a limited stop service to London which would take much of the commuter load and separate it from West Coast intercity passengers using Milton Keynes as a connecting point, which overcrowds the suburban services further.- A further overcrowding issue is on the West Mids suburban services from Birmingham to Coventry and Rugby. Lengthening trains and increasing capacity is difficult due to infrastructure constraints, so I suggest diverting the Southampton freight trains and, if possible, the Reading cross-country services onto the Solihull/Warwick line - which can be four-tracked easily if necessary, as it was in the 1950s.- The figures on Pendolino train loadings are interesting. In the past these trains were loco-hauled and could have coach numbers varied according to demand. Maybe now Virgin/DfT can see the effect of specifying fixed-formation trains for this route.

The average loadings on the London Underground and London commuter routes aren't high either, that doesn't mean they are never crowded and peak capacity isn't an issue - obviously there are more spare seats with the extra two carriages, but that extra capacity will soon be used up. With no paths for more long distance services (as Blackpool & Shrewsbury have just found out) there is clearly going to be a major capacity crunch. Even if the expense of going to 12-car trains was viable, which is unlikely given the major station and depot work needed for a small increase in peak time seats, it is not a long term solution.

One cannot help thinking that the logic behind HS2 is flawed, being based on the movement of people rather than goods. In the past it was the easier movement of goods that increased wealth. HS2 will not move goods.

At eighty miles per hour, the emergency stopping distance for a six carriage train is approximately sixteen times the stopping distance for a motor car travelling at the same speed.One solution to the capacity problem is to replace traditional friction brakes with frictionless electromagnetic brakes offering significantly reduced stopping distances. Magtrac is a possibility. It is described at www.cheshire-innovation.com/Transport%20internet.htm

The article ignores the big growth item. Freight. 29% growth in 6 years, 60% in last 15. The demand is outstripping train paths. HS2 provides those paths on the existing routes, yes plural. It's not just WCML, MML and ECML benefit. HS2 links up all the major routes which are currently being electrified and modernised in advance of HS2. It is not some standalone project, it's a new central spine benefitting the majority of the UK with most long distance north-south rail journeys using it for all or part of their routing.

Michael May fails to mention that rail journeys have doubled in the past 10 years and continue to rise (in spite of rising internet use or maybe because of?)Recent train lengthening of Pendolinos is only a stop gap measure, platforms longer than 12 cars would not be possible at most of the stations. May's solution is to do more patch & mend of the Victorian built West Coast Mainlines, but fails to mention the last attempt was the most disastrous rail infrastructure project in living history. By contrast HS1 was built on time and on budget. May also fails to mention the poor reliability on the west coast line due to running at high capacity with a mix of freight, local, commuter and intercity services on the same line. A single broken down freight train can cause chaos & is a common failure mode. By contrast HS1 has the highest reliability of all UK lines by a long margin.

Endless patch and mend of victorian lines delivers less benefits with more disruption to passengers at lower cost benefit ratio.

Now is the time to finally build a modern and reliable intercity 'spine' for our rail network, and start to seperate long distance routes from freight and stopping trains, that is the way to develop a reliable high capacity railway network which will last another 150 years.

Those who claim otherwise have probably never been on an ICE & probably never have to travel on Britain's unreliable and overcrowded railways.

You say it is implausible that the wcml will be full within a few years but that completely disregards the fact that extra services that Virgin wanted to run were disallowed due to a LACK OF CAPACITY ! And punctuality is slipping for similar reasons. You also mention the spare capacity on Virgin trainsets but disregard the overcrowded LM trains. You make the mistake as seeing capacity as just seat capacity and not TRAIN capacity. You also disregard the extra freight that operators want to run but can't. So you say that "The government, HS2 Ltd and the rail industry continue to use smoke and mirrors when they say that the West Coast Main Line (WCML) will be full in the next 10 years and is near capacity now." I suggest that it is you who are denying reality and using smoke and mirrors as what you have said does not tie in with what the govt, dft, network rail, the operators or Atkins or KPMG have stated nor with what many commuters are experiencing. Rail growth has DOUBLED over the last 15 years!

Your analogy regarding planes would be more akin to use a 747 to replace a 737 and then trying to land it on a runway where there was only room for a 737.

Not being funny but as this site is called "the engineer" I would have thought that there would be more support for an engineering project, unless there is something that this author is not telling us about his motives.

The Engineer is interested in potential solutions to difficult problems. But that doesn't mean we would publicly champion something just because it is a big engineering project.

The Engineer's position on HS2 is not for or against but rather that the decision needs to be taken based on an accurate and broad picture of what the problem is and whether HS2 is the right solution.

We've run several articles in the last couple of years featuring the opinions of those who favour HS2 (eg http://www.theengineer.co.uk/civil-and-structural/in-depth/your-questions-answered-high-speed-2/1016870.article). Partly in response to reader feedback, we have run this article presenting a different argument from an external contributor.

We plan to continue showcasing a range of views on the topic over the coming months in order to shape the debate on HS2 and give readers as much information as possible to enable them to make up their own minds.

Duncan | 18 Sep 2013 10:50 am

Network Rail looked at the Atkins and 51M proposals and found them wanting - was their analysis wrong?